//------------------------------// // August 31 – 6:32 AM // Story: Flash Fog // by Kwakerjak //------------------------------// The actual meeting, which had taken place on a rather large, flat cloud near Rainbow Dash’s house, went off without too many hiccups. Any annoyance that Rainbow Dash had displayed earlier that morning had been completely absent when she’d introduced Fluttershy; her tone of voice exuded confidence expressing her apparent certainty that the local wildlife caretaker was the most qualified pegasus pony available. Fluttershy’s own talk went pretty well, too. Even though she stumbled over the occasional word, her introduction to the situation had sounded almost as authoritative as it had when she’d practiced with Pinkie Pie, and she’d had little difficulty answering most of the technical questions that followed. It wasn’t until the meeting had neared its end that somepony brought up the subject that filled her with the most trepidation. “Okay, I get that it’s bad,” a blue-grey pegasus mare named Cloud Kicker said as Fluttershy finished explaining what the north wind would normally have done to the fog, “but what what are we supposed to do?” “Well, I guess I’ll have to have you cancel whatever weather plans you had for the next few days. All the humidity around Ponyville is going to be a problem. Er, I mean, it will probably be a problem. So, I guess what I’m saying is that you need to get started drying the air out, because if anything, all this mugginess is going to make it worse.” “Great,” Cloud Kicker replied with a roll of her eyes. “Now we’re going to need to create a massive thunderhead to make up for the rain we’ll be missing.” “Are you saying that’ll be a problem?” Rainbow Dash snapped. “Er, no, boss,” the mare replied sheepishly. “Good, because I’d hate for the ponies in Cloudsdale to hear that we were complaining instead of following their specialist’s advice.” “Um, thank you, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy said. “Are there any other questions?”  “That’s the plan, then? Dry the fog out?” asked a pegasus in the back whom Fluttershy didn’t recognize. “Uh, well, I still need to get some more information about the fog before I can, um, come up with a more detailed plan.” “No problem,” Rainbow Dash said. “I’ll just fly out there and have a look at it, and then we can get down to business.” “Er, thank you, but that’s sort of been taken care of.” “Oh? You’ve already sent somepony else out there?” “Uh huh,” Fluttershy asked with a nod. Please don’t ask me who it is. “So, who is it? Is it Thunderlane?” “Um, no...” “Flitter? Cloudchaser?” “We’re right here, boss,” the latter of the two said. “Oh,” Rainbow Dash said. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there. But anyway, which pegasus did you send? I’ll need to fill out the paperwork for hazard pay.” “I, uh, didn’t send a pegasus.” “Huh? What, did you meet a griffon?” “Um, no. It was an earth pony.” “What? But there’s no way an earth pony can travel over the mountains and back in time to provide useful information.” “But... what if she has a flying machine?” “Oh, well, that’s different, I guess.” Rainbow Dash finished her sentence, and sat back down. Two seconds later, she’d sprung to her hooves again, her confident grin having abruptly disintegrated into a disapproving scowl. “Flying machine?! Fluttershy, are you telling me that you sent Pinkie Pie to investigate the fog?” The other weatherponies gasped audibly at this accusation, causing Fluttershy to wince. “Well, she did volunteer....” “Why does that matter? Didn’t you think I’d be willing to go there if you asked?” “Um, well, actually, I was kind of hoping you could help warn all the other pegasi in the area. If you don’t mind, that is.” “What?!” “Just up to the Unicorn Range. I, uh, think the Department of Weather has somepony else alerting the pegasi who live farther north.” Fluttershy absently rifled through the report, looking for confirmation, but Rainbow Dash didn’t bother to wait for it. “So instead of having me do the sort of thing I actually get paid to do, you want me to make a bunch of public service announcements?!” “Well, um, you see, it’s really important that everypony knows about this as soon as possible, so they can be prepared if the worst happens. And since you’re the fastest pegasus in Equestria, I... I thought you’d be the best pony to handle that. Besides, all the pegasi respect you, so they’ll take you seriously.” “Gee, thanks.” “Um, Rainbow Dash... you... you aren’t mad, are you?” “What? Me? No! After all, I’m only a fully trained weatherpony, but we’ve got Pinkie Pie to check out the fog, and she has loads of experience. Plus, everypony knows about her reputation for professionalism. I’m sure there’s no way she’ll get distracted by something shiny on the ground.” Fluttershy cringed a little at the angry sarcasm, but Rainbow Dash did have a point. In fact, she was kind of hoping that Pinkie Pie would take a while to get back, as it gave her a way to avoid being exposed for a few hours more. “But, um, the report does say the fog might be dangerous for pegasi.” “Then why didn’t you send Twilight? At least she has a good understanding of how clouds actually work!” “I... um... I mean....” “Whatever,” Rainbow Dash said. “What do I know? After all, you’re the boss, Flutterspecialist. Is there anything specific I should be telling these pegasi, or should I just get everypony worked up in a panic?” “Well, actually, the Department of Weather did give me something to help with that.” Fluttershy reached into her saddlebag, pulled out a short pamphlet, and gave it to her friend. “There wasn’t time to get a bunch printed for you to distribute, but if you mention the advice on there, it should help.” “Fine,” Rainbow Dash said, still obviously in a huff. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” The blue pegasus took off, leaving a still-worried Fluttershy to handle the rest of the weather team. August 31 – 7:38 AM Pinkie Pie’s first reaction upon seeing the fog bank was that it was a lot bigger than she’d originally thought it would be. On the other hoof, though, it wouldn’t have made much sense to make a huge fuss over it if it wasn’t unusually big. Besides, it had taken almost ninety minutes of solid pedaling for the earth pony to even get here, so it probably would have been disappointing if the fog had just turned out to be an unusually low-hanging clump of water vapor. This, however, was really impressive. Pinkie Pie had never expected the fog to be piled up so high; she was pretty sure that the top was higher in the air than Rainbow Dash’s house. As staggering as the sight before her was, though, Pinkie could easily see why somepony would be worried about what it could do. This cloud (she was pretty sure that it counted as a cloud, at least) was neither a friendly, cottony puffball floating in a sea of blue nor a black, scary blanket that covered the sky signaling an immanent downpour. No, this looked like a massive pile of unflavored taffy, stretched out in every direction, without any recognizable shape. Not wasting any time, she found a pair of large boulders south of the fog and, after briefly landing so she could pace out the distance, the earth pony took to the sky again so she could view the formation from above. Luckily for her, this part of Equestria didn’t have many densely packed groves of trees, so it was fairly easy to pick out her arbitrarily chosen landmarks, which were about twenty trots apart, from high over the ground. When the fog covered the first one, she began counting out loud, “One Fillydelphia, two Fillydelphia, three Fillydelphia...” Forty-four Fillydelphias later, the second boulder was completely covered. That didn’t seem very fast, since most ponies Pinkie knew could walk faster than that, but it seemed relatively speedy for an enormous cloud that wasn’t being pushed around by pegasus ponies. Still, it was a rough estimation of the fog’s speed, which was exactly what Fluttershy had requested. Now, she just needed to discern its density. By this time, however, Pinkie Pie had been pedaling for nearly an hour and a half, and her legs were starting to feel a little strained. Rather than risk crashing from exhaustion, she chose instead to land her flying machine by a large, isolated spruce tree on the bank of a river, just to the west of the fog. She still had one more task to do, but luckily for her, it was one that she could do with little difficulty on the ground. The earth pony landed, pushed her machine up against the tree’s trunk, and proceeded to march confidently into the grey mass. It didn’t take long for the fog to completely surround her. Pinkie Pie had never seen a landscape get swallowed up so thoroughly. Granted, there wasn’t very much that was interesting in this area to swallow in the first place, but it was still quite impressive. Beneath her, there was nothing but rocks and gravel; behind her, there was only her tail (which was also somewhat obscured by the fog); and in every other direction, there was nothing but shades of grey. She couldn’t quite figure out why, but Pinkie Pie was starting to get seriously creeped out. “Okay, Pinkie,” she said to herself, “you already know what to do in situations like this: laugh!” She let out a sharp peal of giggling intended to expose the absurdity of being afraid at whatever it was that had her feeling so agitated. This time, however, her laughter petered out quickly, as there weren’t any ghosties to giggle at. There was only an impersonal expanse of grey surrounding her in every direction, trailing away forever. But if it went on forever, where was this strangely claustrophobic feeling coming from? A chill ran up her spine, which would have been understandable given how creeped out she felt, but this chill actually felt cold. Not an “outside in the middle of winter” cold, but more like a “three unicorns tried to cool down a room at the same time” cold... except there wasn’t a room. There was just grey. “I don’t like it in here,” Pinkie Pie said aloud, if only to hear something other than the sound of her hooves hitting the ground as she continued to advance into the gloom. For what might have been the first time in her life, she found her normally-abundant supply of curiosity depleted. After all, she’d gotten what she came for: she’d learned how thick the fog was (really thick) and how fast it was moving (kinda fast). If there was anything else that was worth knowing about the fog, she didn’t want to be the pony to find out. Pinkie brushed her wet mane away from her eyes, only now noticing how extraordinarily damp it was in the cinereous void. It just felt so wrong: she didn’t feel scared, yet she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and her breathing was becoming more rapid. The earth pony attempted to will herself into a normal state of mind, but was interrupted when her entire body began shaking. “Oh, no! Is that a d-d-d-doozy-y?” Her unintentional stutter, however, answered that question for her. Her Pinkie Sense hadn’t activated; she was shivering, and Pinkie Pie knew perfectly well that shivering during the summer was not something that was supposed to happen. “Th-this is b-bad.” It was time to return to Ponyville. She turned around and headed back where she came from, confident that she’d be up in the air again soon. After all, she’d been traveling in a straight line, so another straight line in the opposite direction would return her to the large tree, right? Five minutes later, Pinkie Pie was starting to question whether she’d actually been traveling as linearly as she’d assumed, because the fog didn’t seem to be getting any thinner, and there was no sign of either the spruce or the river. Her attempts to follow her hoofprints back to the tree were foiled, as she couldn’t distinguish the marks she’d left from the uneven surface of the gravel beneath her. She tried using the sun to figure out her direction, but the light was so thoroughly diffused by the fog that east appeared to be every direction she looked. By now, her teeth were chattering like an overactive typewriter, and her hooves were starting to feel numb. Pinkie’s eyes widened in panic as she realized how much trouble she was in—she was wet, she was cold, and she was tired, but worst of all, she was lost.